KY­RON REG­IS

ky­ron.reg­is@guardian.co.tt

Agos­ti­ni’s Ltd has record­ed 3.7 per cent in growth as its net prof­it moved from $163 mil­lion to $169 mil­lion.

This was re­flect­ed in the com­pa­ny’s bot­tom line growth for the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30.

The com­pa­ny said this was achieved in spite of the rav­aging ef­fects of COVID-19.

Agos­ti­ni’s chair­man Chris­t­ian Mout­tet said, “We do not take this achieve­ment for grant­ed and recog­nise that in 2020, this has much to do with the in­dus­tries in which we op­er­ate as it does with the qual­i­ty of our peo­ple and the strength of our un­der­ly­ing busi­ness­es.”

Mout­tet added that though the year was not short of chal­lenges, the com­pa­ny was able to de­liv­er on its two core ob­jec­tives; sus­tain­able long term growth and fi­nan­cial strength.

He al­so not­ed that the com­pa­ny showed its true strength and re­silience, which was un­der­pinned by ded­i­cat­ed and com­mit­ted peo­ple, a strong port­fo­lio of brands and prod­ucts, an im­proved fi­nan­cial per­for­mances and sup­port to its staff and com­mu­ni­ty.

For the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, Agos­ti­ni’s sales in­creased by five per cent from the $3.27 bil­lion to $3.43 bil­lion and prof­it at­trib­ut­able to share­hold­ers in­creased by three per cent from $122 mil­lion to $126 mil­lion.

The com­pa­ny al­so record­ed an in­crease in prof­it be­fore tax by 10 per cent and its op­er­at­ing cash flow im­proved by 24 per cent from $221 mil­lion to $275 mil­lion.

Mout­tet not­ed that the les­son learnt from 2020, if any at all, was that the world can be an un­pre­dictable place.

“The cost that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had, and con­tin­ues to have, is im­mea­sur­able and, in many cas­es, ir­repara­ble. The pan­dem­ic and its dev­as­tat­ing health and eco­nom­ic im­pact can tru­ly be de­scribed as a ‘black swan’ event, the very na­ture of which is the dif­fi­cul­ty in pre­dict­ing its type and tim­ing,” he said.

Nonethe­less, Mout­tet said the com­pa­ny does have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be pre­pared, so when sim­i­lar events do oc­cur it will be po­si­tioned as best as it can not on­ly to sur­vive, but thrive, when con­di­tions once again im­prove.

Not­ing that the af­ter ef­fects of COVID-19 cri­sis will bring many chal­lenges to the in­dus­tries and economies in which the com­pa­ny op­er­ates, Mout­tet said in years ahead the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess will be de­ter­mined by its abil­i­ty to man­age and in­flu­ence change in its in­dus­tries, and not just re­act­ing to it.

In the short term, Mout­tet ac­knowl­edged that there re­mains much un­cer­tain­ty in T&T and the oth­er economies in the re­gion in which the com­pa­ny op­er­ates.

In look­ing at the new fi­nan­cial year, he said the com­pa­ny ex­pects its busi­ness­es in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health­care and the fast mov­ing con­sumer goods sec­tors to re­main sta­ble, but with­out the short-term spike in sales that it en­joyed dur­ing the be­gin­ning of the COVID-19 cri­sis.

Mout­tet said that the group ex­pects to see some im­prove­ment in its con­struc­tion and en­er­gy ser­vices busi­ness­es as en­er­gy prices sta­bilise and com­pa­nies once again re­sume cap­i­tal and main­te­nance ex­pen­di­ture, and con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty im­proves.

“We al­so ex­pect that con­struc­tion in­cen­tives an­nounced in the re­cent na­tion­al bud­get will act as a cat­a­lyst for new con­struc­tion projects,” Mout­tet added.

As a group, he said that Agos­ti­ni’s re­mains op­ti­mistic in its abil­i­ty to achieve growth and im­prove prof­itabil­i­ty over the medi­um to long term.